Sigurd F. Olson introduced generations of Americans to the importance of wilderness. He served as president of the Wilderness Society and the National Parks Association and as a consultant to the federal government on wilderness preservation. He earned many honors, including the highest possible awards from the Sierra Club, the National Wildlife Federation, and the Izaak Walton League. The first of his many influential books was The Singing Wilderness (1956; reprint available from Minnesota). David Backes is author of A Wilderness Within: The Life of Sigurd F. Olson and editor of Olson's The Meaning of Wilderness: Essential Articles and Speeches, both from Minnesota. In 2015 he retired as professor of journalism and mass communication at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.
""There is an innocent romance in Olson’s essays, a sincere touch of the spiritual."" —The Wall Street Journal ""A revelation of Olson’s personal diaries and his struggles to balance his life’s passion — writing about nature, about the outdoors — with his job as a teacher, his responsibilities as a husband and father and his role as a national leader in the growing movement to preserve wild places.""—Duluth News Tribune ""The first decades of Sigurd Olson’s writing life were filled with frustration and hope, failure and doubt, and finally, publication. The new collection of his journals from this painful and formative time reveals a writer whose life was defined by the struggle between his calling and his many commitments.""—Quetico Superior Wilderness News ""While those journal entries were haphazard, often on scraps of paper, usually dated, but sometimes not, they captured [Olson’s] thoughts about the wilderness he loved and how he wanted to be the writer who shared those experiences with readers.""—Steve Gardiner ""For the voice of a man who spent his life in more familiar wild country, seek out A Private Wilderness.""—Minnesota Alumni ""A revelation of Olson’s personal diaries and his struggles to balance his life’s passion—writing about nature, about the outdoors—with his job as a teacher, his responsibilities as a husband and father and his role as a national leader in the growing movement to preserve wild places.""—Duluth News Tribune ""The first decades of Sigurd Olson’s writing life were filled with frustration and hope, failure and doubt, and finally, publication. The new collection of his journals from this painful and formative time reveals a writer whose life was defined by the struggle between his calling and his many commitments.""—Quetico Superior Wilderness News ""While those journal entries were haphazard, often on scraps of paper, usually dated, but sometimes not, they captured [Olson’s] thoughts about the wilderness he loved and how he wanted to be the writer who shared those experiences with readers.""—Steve Gardiner ""For the voice of a man who spent his life in more familiar wild country, seek out A Private Wilderness.""—Minnesota Alumni ""There is an innocent romance in Olson’s essays, a sincere touch of the spiritual.""—The Wall Street Journal